The Creature in My Lucid Dreams

These events happened when I was a student, living with my parents and
younger sister in an apartment building, built in 1980, of which we were the
first owners. Thessaloniki is a very old town, it took its name from
Alexander the Great's sister who was named 'Thessaloniki' by her father,
Philip the Great after his victory against the Thessalians (some other
Greeks in the central plains of the peninsula). There are neolithic remains
a couple of miles from where my parents' place is. The city has been
attacked by Romans, raided by crusaders, rebuilt by Byzantines, occupied by
Bulgarians, Turks, Germans, you name it. There also used to be a significant
Jewish community there before the war, but almost all of them were taken to
concentration camps. So there's lots of history, wars, and many many violent
deaths in that town. So naturally I have heard many stories of 'encounters,'
and quite a few of my more imaginative friends have claimed to have
experienced stuff, and/or to be psychic. I never had the slightest
indication of anything paranormal, so I always thought of such talk as tall
tales, and I'd make fun of them, "You should give up drugs, man, they're not
for you," that sort of thing. I still do that. What I mean to say is that
I'm still not entirely convinced that what happened was not entirely in my
head. Any ideas would be welcome.

Anyway, at the time when this weird stuff started I was mostly partying a
lot, attending classes whenever, and partying some more. So I'd usually be
back home at 3 or 4 in the morning. The apartment is shaped like an H, the
two vertical lines being the front and back façade. My room was at the
front. I was sleeping on a couch -- didn't like beds -- along the left side
of the room. The door was behind me, the wall to the right was covered with
book shelves, below those were my stereo and records, opposite was a large
sliding double glass door leading to a small balcony. The first time it
happened, I had just fallen asleep and had what appeared to be a very lucid
dream. I had the sensation that I was awake. I was lying in bed and could
see the room around me as it appeared normally, dark, except for the bluish
light coming through the balcony door. I also knew that there was something
looking at me from the other side of the room to my right, where the shelves
and the stereo were. This part was completely in the shadows, so I could
only see the small red light of the sound equipment. I tried to stand up and
turn on the light but my legs and arms felt heavy, like rubber and they
wouldn't obey me. I was sliding on the couch arm, and the floor, and the
armchair, in a vain effort to reach the switch... And then I woke up, and
the room looked exactly as before, only in more sharp detail? I literally
flew to the light switch and kept it on until my parents woke up hours later
and I could see sunlight and hear people around the house. I dismissed the
whole thing as a bad dream and forgot about it. Until next night.

Same story but worse: the moment I fell asleep I woke up again and had more
blurred version of my room, the thing -- whatever it was -- was there again,
on the other side of the room, looking at me. This time I knew I was
dreaming so I didn't try to stand up and go for the light switch. Instead, I
tried to wake up. And at first it seemed that it worked, but no, the thing
was still there, everything still looked this unreal bluish color... I
couldn't wake up, so I panicked and started calling for help. I finally
managed to wake up for real and stayed up again with the lights on until
sunrise. I was not looking forward to another night of that sort so I stayed
at a friend's house the following evening. I slept like a log. No
disturbances, no odd stuff happening, nada. But I still was convinced that
this was a coincidence, something heavy that I ate perhaps -- although we
were not really into eating at such late hours. So the fourth night I went
back home to sleep. And yes, surely enough, the same thing happened all over
again. It was a very strange state, the one I was in when that "dream" came.
Although my movement seemed very sluggish, and everything was bathed in that
eerie grey-blue light, for the rest I felt as if I were completely awake.
This time my curiosity got the best of me and I did not flip out trying
frantically to wake up or to reach the light switch, I just stayed where I
was waiting to see what would happen. I felt the thing that was watching me
come very slowly close, to the end of the couch, and get hold of my ankles.
It did not feel exactly like hands with fingers were closing around my
ankles, no, but something in the shadows was dragging my body slowly out of
the couch, taking the covers with me as I was sliding, feet first, toward
the balcony door. My plan was to let whatever was pulling me out the couch
think I was still asleep, then the moment I reached the balcony door to jump
on the creature and scare it away (well, all that bravery was in a dream).
The moment I jumped it, I woke up. I was still lying on my couch but in the
opposite direction, like, my feet were on my pillow. For that to happen I
would have to stand up and lie down the other direction, since that couch
was a fairly narrow one. But, as far as I know, I have never sleepwalked in
my life. The following days I slept at a friend's houses whenever I could,
because every time I slept at home the thing would be there. I had no idea
what to do about it or what it was so I asked these friends of mine, three
guys who were roommates and were into New Age stuff and I Ching and selling
jewelry from their frequent trips to India (recharging their spiritual
batteries, humm). I thought, at least all that could be useful for a change.
And they really jumped on the occasion to help me. One of them, we call him
"Captain" because he used to be in the marines, was particularly eager to
help, pronounced it immediately as a haunting and offered to come and
whatsamacallit? exorcise the place? Yeah. That. Of course this was out of
the question, showing up at my parents' house with some hippy chanting and
burning joss sticks in my room (okay, he was not a hippy, but still).

So the three of them went into discussion on what could be done if an
on-the-spot "treatment" was out of the question. The Captain insisted that
before it was sent away, I had to seize the opportunity to study the thing.
No way, I wanted it gone and banished. The other two were asking me if I had
any old stuff in my room, like vintage jewelry and such. Well, the only
thing that was old and acquired before the weird stuff started happening was
actually a Chinese teapot, a very pretty one, which I had bought quite cheap
in an antiques store in France and brought it home from there. But, what the
hell? A haunted teapot?! It sounded ridiculous. However, the said teapot was
on the shelf right above the stereo, where I first felt the thing looking at
me from. Meanwhile, I tried sleeping at home with the lights on, but that
turned out to be a bad idea because I got to see what the thing looked like.
Not pretty. As soon as I "woke up" in my dream, the room was no longer in
that grey-bluish light, but fully lit by the bedside lamp as it was in
reality. The thing, a kind of shriveled up old lady or guy -- not easy to
tell gender -- no more than three feet tall, and wrapped up like a bundle in
black rags fell from the ceiling on the couch's back next to my head, I
rolled over to avoid it jumping on my face and it grabbed my pillow and
started hitting me with it on the head! We were hitting each other and I
woke up again for real by falling off the couch. At that point I really had
enough so I asked my friends for straight advice how to get rid of it
pronto. While Captain was obviously enjoying himself a lot experimenting
with all that -- he wasn't the one losing his sleep and peace -- he told me
to try making the sign of the cross or a pentagram when the thing appears to
see how it will react to these holy signs. If nothing else, the conscious
effort would wake me up. So I did the sign of the cross when I felt it
moving toward the couch (the lights were off again this time) and a huge
bang, like an explosion was heard and I woke up. Captain said that it
didn't like it. So next step he gave me a long chant to read while I burned
incense (I was desperate at that point to get rid of it by whatever
means...) at the four corners of the room. The chant/prayer was addressed to
the four archangels. Just in case, I also moved the teapot to a closed
display case in the salon, as far away as I could from my room. And that was
it. Well, the one or the other, it doesn't matter, what matters is that the
thing never showed up again, the strange lucid dreams stopped, and I was
immensely happy about it.